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Saturday, March 21, 2009

People ask me all the time what I've been reading, or what I would recommend. I'm still working on a canonical football book post, listing "must reads" for understanding the game (to be honest it's not an easy list). But I want to make this "what I've been reading" bit a semi-regular series. It will of course include both football and non-football books.

5. Wall Street on the Tundra by Michael Lewis - An article about Iceland ("the only nation on earth that Americans could point to and say, 'Well, at least we didn’t do that.'") for Vanity Fair magazine. Great stuff.

6. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood - Not sure if it is exactly up the alley of a lot of this site's readers, but it was one of the best novel's I've read in some time. Judge Richard Posner wrote an excellent review of the book for the New Republic that can be found here.

15 comments:

Anything more on "Blindsided"? I'm a big fan of Michael Lewis, and like every other thinking football fan I've read "Blindside." Does "Blindsided" actually make any relevant points against Lewis' book? When I flipped through it at a book store it seemed like it was the kind of commentary FJM used to take apart - based more on "gut feelings" than on the numbers.

About 20 years ago I was working on Wall Street and everyone on the subway was reading The Bonfire of the Vanities. I picked up a copy and was disappointed with it. Would be interesting to read it now to see if my perspective has changed.

I really liked A Man in Full, which was panned by the highbrow reviewers.

Fooled by Randomness is really good. Taleb is looking better and better with each Wall Street failure.

Wall Street on the Tundra? Dang, seems like you've been reading my reading list! That being said, I'll read pretty much anything by Michael Lewis.

Blindsided was basically a collection of essays. OTTOMH, I liked KC Joyner's taxonomy of coaches. I don't really care for his rating system for players (it seems to rigidly beholden to his Adjusted Yards stats), but Sean Lahman's Pro Football Historical Abstract may be a better book pick.

I read the first chapter of Joyner's "Blindsided" and I was disappointed. While I agree that left tackles are overrated in terms of salary cap allocations, I thought his analysis was really, really poor.

I was really puzzled with his analysis of run blocking. With zone blocking, cut back RBs, and draw plays without designated holes, how in the world does he know where a running play was designed to go?

And his analysis of the effectiveness of pass blocking was limited to sacks allowed. That's ridiculous. Just because QB managed to unload the ball to avoid the sack, it doesn't mean the blocker got the job done.

In general, he doesn't seem to have any recognition of all the different ways that game plans, playcalling and other matchups influence a given player's performance. But this criticism applies to just about anyone trying to use Bill James' style analysis to football.

protocoach: stan and Jon covered some of my thoughts, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) the upshot on the left tackle being "overrated" was based on his view that Lewis had claimed that left tackles were the end-all-be-all, and that they weren't significantly more important than the other offensive linemen. Which to me missed what Lewis was saying: when I read the Blindside sounded basically like Lewis was just saying that left tackles were, in fact, the second highest paid position and was not making a normative statement.

Also, the rest of the book seemed weak too: either super obvious (Bill Belichick is a good coach!), or generally not persuasive.

One issue stan: I agree that a lot of people trying to do Bill James-esque things for football is subject to not understanding the game's complexities, but Joyner seems awfully confident in his recommendations, despite their shaky foundations.

I know my selection isn't anywhere near as high brow as the others mentioned here, but you can't beat the Nike Coach of the Year clinic notes.

Although not a novel in any way, shape or form, the information in this is incredible, and it really gives you insight into your football knowledge. Think you know football? Read a 10 page article discussing how to play a 3 technique in an even front, and then realise you don't know as much as you thought you did...

I love that -- ten pages on playing a 3 technique. I'm a huge believer in coaching, game plans, playcalling -- the whole chess match. But you'll get a kick out of a true story I got from another coach.

My friend started out as a GA for a famous college coach (known for a certain offensive innovation) and went on to coach def line at several schools and won a national championship. One season when he was a GA, they had a freshman defensive lineman who was an absolute wrecking ball in the first couple of scrimmages. Dumb as a rock and no technique. He just lined up, wrecked the blocker(s), found the ball and made the play. First team offense couldn't block him. He had no idea about footwork, reading a hat, controlling his gap, squeezing the hole or anything. Just wrecked plays and made tackles.

Famous coach called his staff together and said with emphasis, "Y'all leave him alone. If I catch any of you SOBs trying to coach him up, I'll fire your ass on the spot!"

Chris, I'm not sure how much Joyner has in common with Bill James. I thought that Joyner gathered his information from watching the games instead of looking purely at stats. Even Football Outsiders does this nowadays. As I said on Residual Prolixity when Tom reviewed it, the book reminds me of one of the Baseball Prospectus books from a couple of years ago (not Mind Game. Some other one.) but it is shorter and has one author.

I'm tempted to reread the book again and critique or read some Joyner at ESPN. FWIW, he doesn't strike me as smug as some Football Outsiders. After reading a number of things about sports in the 50s, I'd like to revisit his Bert Bell chapter and see if my impression of it has changed

Jon, how is "The best game ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the birth of the modern NFL"? I read an excerpt in the Atlantic (where the author sat down with Andy Reid to dissect the game), and while I enjoyed it, it contained some weird inaccuracies (when defenses or certain formations or strategies were invented, some other fundamental football errors). Any thoughts?

Also, I didn't mean to imply that Joyner and James are on the same level. I enjoy James particular for the reason that he focuses solely on stats: I think there's a purity to the approach. Joyner's is more of a blend, but not always in a good way. I don't dislike him or what he's doing, just wasn't particularly thrilled.

But I will point out that the entire trend of more of this kind of thing can only be good, FO included.

About Smart Football

Smart Football analyzes football's strategies, Xs and Os, and tactics, along with the theory and history supporting them. Chris Brown writes Smart Football, and he has been writing about football, in one form or another, since 2002.@SmartFootball (Twitter)